Conference 2013

CAUTHE 2013 – 23rd CAUTHE conference

Theme: Tourism and Global Change: on the Edge of Something Big
Date: 11-14 February 2013

The Department of Social Science, Parks, Recreation Tourism and Sport at Lincoln University was privileged to host the first CAUTHE conference outside of Australia and in so doing confirmed CAUTHE as a truly Australasian entity.

Significant and disruptive earthquakes centred on Christchurch occurred post formal bidding and throughout the 18 months leading up to the conference. These were disruptive, necessitating migration across three venues (the first significantly destroyed, and the second subsequently deemed unsafe). They unwittingly forced a refocus on a ‘campus based’ event, which emerged as significant benefit. Similarly the earthquakes themselves, the role of tourism and tourists in risk and resilience and the engagement of the tourism sector in the city’s recovery became a major conference theme.

These themes were augmented by an outstanding keynote speech from the CEO of the Regional Travel Organisation to open the conference, an extended papers stream and special interest group on risk and resilience and conference tour of the CBD red zone.

The first mid‐career workshop, initiated by CAUTHE fellows, was well received. A successful PhD and Early Career workshop, themed around research methods was also well structured and received. The conference enjoyed wide acclaim from participants and generated strong local and national media coverage.

Delegate Profile

A total of 194 delegates attended the conference from seventeen countries. There were 82 delegates from Australia and 76 from New Zealand; 14 from the UK; three each from Thailand, South Africa and Hong Kong; two each from Norway, Sweden and Switzerland; and one each from the USA, Germany, France, Slovenia, Japan, Malta and Malaysia.